Gmail has a fine selection of formatting options but, unfortunately, some of the less common items like strikethrough, superscript, and subscript aren’t instantly available. Now, we know these are fairly niche ways of writing, but it’s your email, so why shouldn’t you be able to express yourself?
Luckily, inserting unusual characters into a Gmail email (try saying that five times fast) is actually easy and simple. In this article, we’ll walk you through the process step-by-step.
Step 1 – Open Gmail
We’re going to start by creating a new email. To do this, click the big red Compose button on the left-hand side of the screen.
A new window will appear. This is where you type the main text of your email. Down at the bottom, you’ll notice a selection of formatting options. Bold, italics, and underline are all supported, but there’s no strikethrough option. This tells us that we’ll have to bring this kind of text from elsewhere.
Step 2 – Open a Word Processing Program
You can use whichever word processing application you’re most comfortable with. In this example, we’ll be using Microsoft Word. Type in some text, then highlight it and click the button shown below to add a strikethrough.
You can also choose to add different effects here if you’d like to. There aren’t any limits; why not try clicking the Insert tab and adding a symbol as well?
For instance: ♥How to strikethrough text in Gmail ♥
Step 3 – Copy and Paste into Gmail
Now all that remains is to copy and paste your text back into the Gmail email creation window. You can do this by pressing the Control key and C at the same time, then paste with the Control key and V. You can also right-click the highlighted text and select copy or paste from the context menu.
Once your text is in Gmail, feel free to click the blue Send button at the bottom of the window. Gmail preserves all of your text’s formatting and your recipient will be able to see it exactly as you do. Simple, isn’t it?
Step 4 – Experiment!
Now that we know how to insert formatted text into Gmail, we can experiment with all kinds of writing. For instance, you can also:
I̖͇̞̝n̵̞̣̖̪͔sé͙̹͇r̙̻̥t͚̬̱ ͖ͅc̗̼̜ͅr̼̳̟̲̰͢ͅe̯̳͕͘e̫̻͎̪̼̠͠p͍̼y̠̪̙̹̠̰̩ ̢̝̜͕̥̼̟ͅt̘̞͓̖e͇x̨t̳͈̗̹̩̯͘ͅ
ínsєrt cutєsч tєхt
ⓘⓝⓢⓔⓡⓣ ⓑⓤⓑⓑⓛⓔ ⓣⓔⓧⓣ
Or even
||̿ ͇| ͇ ͇̿ ̿ |̶͇̿ ̶͇̿ ͇̿ |̿ ̶̿’╮ ̿ ̿|̿ ̿ |̿ ̶̿’╮|͇̿ ͇̿ ͇̿||̶͇̿ ̶͇̿ ̶͇̿)|͇̿ ͇̿ ͇̿| ̿ ̿|̿ ̿ ||͇̿ ͇̿ ͇̿ ͇̿ ̿ ̿|̿ ̿ |̶͇̿ ̶͇̿ ͇̿ ╳ ̿ ̿|̿ ̿
Conclusion
Inserting unusual text in Gmail isn’t all that hard, there are just a couple of extra steps involved. Still, though: now you know how it’ll become second nature to you. Until Google adds this functionality to their email service, we’ll just have to make do with this workaround.
You already know how to strikethrough in Gmail. Since this guide is about email, take the time to read our other helpful guides on how to sign in to Comcast email and how to check your Juno email with IMAP. These guides might help you.